Bullied for Love, Bullied by Love - Ridhi Gupta

Bullied for Love, Bullied by Love - RG

It was her younger sister's birthday. Their parents had decided that it had been too long since the family had gotten together so they had thrown a party. She had been made to drive down to attend. Her parents knew just how to blackmail her into coming, but it was her sister she had come to meet. It wasn't much, just the towns' folk gathering for an evening together. The town had always been flowing with youth, very few of the older generation was still living there, they all just seemed to move away from the violence, to safer, quieter neighbourhoods.

Just like old times she thought.

When Andrea was young she had to face a lot of bullying. She was ostracized and ridiculed by most of the boys in her class. "For fun's sake", they said.

At first, she didn't know what to do and she would get angrier every day. Then one day she broke a guy's nose. The school sent her home with a black card. It was always only she who would get called to the principal's office and only she, who would get punished. It made her mad. She started spending more and more time at the gym. She built up her strength as she channelled her anger.

They went on catcalling and throwing comments at her, trying to push her into fighting them. She didn't because she didn't want to get in trouble again, not visibly at least. Then Andrea found another way to stand up to them.

She became one of them. The only difference was, she was a much stronger bully.

Anna joined school two years after Andrea, but by then no one would dare make fun of Andrea's sister. Andrea had made sure of that, her reputation by now was fierce. She never again got caught. And no one dared out her to the school authorities. She had slowly built up her control because that's what you did if you wanted to survive.

Anna had a much more comfortable life than Andrea ever did. Also, Anna was a prodigy at science, the teachers realized that soon enough and started keeping a close eye on her, taking care that she wasn't tormented. It was a small town and they could use some fame. They thought Anna would bring that to the town.

Anna always looked up to her sister but hated the way everyone was afraid of her. It made her afraid too. Andrea was a different person at school and at home. One night when Anna had asked her why she was one of the bad guys at school, Andrea had said something that remained in Anna's thoughts from that day on. She said that the day this town decides to learn how to mind their own business, she wouldn't have to be a bully anymore.

Andrea had decided to move away from her family when she was twenty. Even after school was done she couldn't get out of her role. So she got a job at a conservation of nature organization, NCO they called it. Everyone scoffed at the idea of Andrea conserving anything. But when Anna asked her why she was leaving she said that she needed to get away from a town that would never let her be sane.

That was when Anna decided she had to do something. She let her sister go and was happy that Andrea could finally try to be herself again, even if it was away from home. They never lost touch. They were each other's life support. But even being away from her town showed Andrea that she couldn't change who she was, it had been too long and it had become an instinct. She still tried to not be the person she was at school, and the time she spent away from people helped.

Andrea worked in the department of Bio Diversity where they would identify new species of plants and research about the resources to keep them from extinction. She couldn't really bully plants, so over time she sobered up, but her attitude stuck. She didn't have to work with other people, so they didn't have a reason to fire her, but thankfully they couldn't hear the conversations she had in her head else she would have been long gone.

She was currently stationed at one of their camps, near her town, with five others from different departments. It had been nine years since she had left home and she had to admit, she missed it. Or not, whatever! Shut up. She silenced herself.